


I Had Hope

by wanheda_two_heda



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Blood, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Pining!Bellamy, doctor!clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 06:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10269887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanheda_two_heda/pseuds/wanheda_two_heda
Summary: Bellamy's used to his best friend treating his apartment as her own. She lives there half the time anyway. But he's a little more than concerned when he finds her crying in his bed, blankets pulled up under her chin. He knows that she lets her work get to her sometimes, but he's never seen her like this, and maybe the trouble is that she had too much hope.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Bellarke Semi-Finalist for Best One-Shot - Hurt/Comfort & Angst**
> 
> I was planning on making this funny, but it took on a life of its own, so I hope you enjoy this very not funny drabble.

“Clarke?” Bellamy called as he shut the door to his apartment.

He didn’t know that she was coming over, not that he would ever complain about getting to spend more time with his best friend, but coming to find her shoes kicked off haphazardly by his front door while she was supposed to be at work was not something that he was used to.

When he didn’t get an answer, he walked further into his apartment, discarding his messenger bag on the couch as he passed it. The washing machine was on a spin cycle, but he distinctly did not remember starting a load of laundry before heading over the the university. The door to his room was ajar, and he pushed it open to find Clarke curled up in his bed, her blonde hair spread over his pillow, and shoulders bare. 

He stopped for a moment in the doorway to take her in. She was beautiful, though he’d always been to shy to say it out loud. Miller was constantly teasing him about how far gone he was for this girl, and in moments like this, he didn’t even know why he bothered to argue. She stirred, and he snapped out of his daze, not wanting to be caught watching her sleep.

He climbed onto the bed beside her, careful not to jostle her, and leaning back against the headboard. “Rise and shine, Princess,” he said, brushing a strand of golden hair off of her face. She groaned and settled back into the covers. “Clarke, you know I love it when you come over, but is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”

Her eyes opened to look at him, and they were red, still puffy from crying. He was instantly worried, more alert than when he walked into the room.

“Clarke?”

She looked up at him, eyes filling with tears, and she let loose a sob that sounded so broken it felt like someone had torn his heart out and stomped on it. She reached for him, and he immediately moved down to take her into his arms. Her hands clenched into tight fists, grabbing the fabric of his shirt and refusing to let go. Her body shook violently as she continued to cry, her voice breaking anytime she tried to talk.

He rubbed his hand soothingly up and down her back, thumb gliding over her skin in circles while he made comforting noises. He wanted to give her as much time as she needed to put into words what had made her so upset. Eventually, when his t-shirt was thoroughly soaked through with her tears, she stopped crying, and taking in a loud, shuddering breath, she looked up at him.

“Hi,” she said, trying to smile.

Bellamy leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “What happened?”

“I was at the hospital, and I wasn’t even half-way through my shift when this little nine-year-old girl - Charlotte -” she sobbed around the word. “This little girl came in, and I guess her mom had gotten into an argument with her boyfriend and her boyfriend had a gun, and oh, God, Bellamy, there was so much blood,” Clarke said before dissolving into another fit of heart wrenching sobs.

Clarke loved her job, loved her patients, and rarely was she ever not affected by something she’d seen at work, but Bellamy had never seen her like this, and they’d been friends for as long as Clarke had been a doctor. He held her tightly, sensing her need for physical comfort, and waited for her crying to once again subside.

“She was shot six times,” Clarke said, her voice hoarse from all the tears. “Six times, Bellamy. She was so small, so small, and she was just riddled with all these bullet holes. I knew she was never going to survive, but she was awake when she came off the ambulance so I had hope; she was still breathing. I was soaked in her blood before we even got her to the trauma room. She died before we could even tell the nurse to call the blood bank.”

“Oh, Clarke,” Bellamy sighed, tucking her snuggly against his side. “Shit. That must have been horrible. I’m so glad you came here. You should have called me. I would have come home right away!”

“I was a wreck, and they told me to go home, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t be alone. And I was still covered in her blood. So I just took off, and I ran to the first place that came to mind when I thought that I needed to feel safe. I didn’t even take my scrubs off before I took a shower; I just needed to get it all off of me as fast as I could. I threw the scrubs in your washing machine with half a bottle of detergent, and I just didn’t have the energy to find something to wear, so I climbed under your covers and must have fallen asleep.”

One of her first comments had made his heart tighten hopefully. “This is the first place you thought of when you wanted to feel safe?” Bellamy asked. He tried to extricate himself from Clarke’s grasp. “Let me get you a sweater.”

“No,” she said, holding onto his shirt even tighter than before. “Stay. Please. And it wasn’t your apartment that I thought of, it was you. You’re my safe place.”

He lay back down beside her, curling his body around hers and throwing his arm over her waist to pull her back against his chest. “I’m not going anywhere, Princess,” he said against the skin where her shoulder met her neck.

He felt her shiver as her hand found his, and she twined her fingers through Bellamy’s. 

“Thank you,” she said, pulling their joint hands up onto the pillow in front of her so that she could nuzzle them before settling in against him. 

He kissed her shoulder, left his lips against her ivory skin a few seconds longer than platonic dictates. “You’re my safe space, too,” he whispered, but she was already asleep, exhausted from the day’s emotional turmoil. 

* * *

Clarke woke first, comfortably curled into her best friend’s side. She looked up at his sleeping face, took in the steady beating of his heart and the consistent rise and fall of his chest. She mapped out the freckles over the bridge of his nose, and not for the first time, she felt her heart swell with all that she felt for the man beside her. He stirred and his eyes opened. When he saw her, a slow, lazy smile spread across his face, and warmth bloomed in Clarke’s chest.

“Sleep well?” he asked, his voice already hoarse from disuse.

Clarke mumbled happily and smiled against his shoulder. “Always do when I’m with you,” she said, and it was so quiet that Bellamy almost didn’t catch it.

He carded his fingers through her hair, and she melted further against him. “I’m glad,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Clarke rolled over onto her back, clutching the blanket tightly to her chest, and yawned. When she looked over at Bellamy, he was still smiling at her. “What?” she asked with a shy smile.

“Nothing,” he answered with a smirk. “What time is it?”

She reached for the phone on his bedside table and looked at the screen. “Half past seven,” she answered. She took in the multiple missed calls from Maya and a few text messages from Raven that she would answer later.

He reached for her hand, brushing his thumb back and forth over her knuckles. “You okay?” he asked tentatively.

“Not okay, but better.” She gave him a steady smile, and he returned it.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Maybe later?”

“Later is good. Dinner?”

“I love it when you cook for me,” Clarke answered.

He climbed out of bed and stretched, his joints popping as he did so, and Clarke tried to ignore the strip of tan abdominal muscles exposed when his shirt rode up. He got her looking despite her efforts, and shot her a smirk. “Like what you see?” he asked, cocky as ever.

She rolled her eyes. “You know you’re attractive; no need to let it get to your head.”

He chuckled as he walked to his dresser and found a t-shirt and sweat pants to lend her. Clarke looked at him expectantly.

“What?” he asked.

“You just gonna stand there and watch, or are you going to let me get changed?” she asked.

She almost laughs at the rapid blush that creeps up his neck all the way to his ears.

“Yeah, uh, sorry. I’ll, uh, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

He turned on his heel and left the room, shutting the door behind him. Clarke couldn’t keep the smile her smile off her face. She dressed quickly, eager to rejoin Bellamy. She ducked into his bathroom, wanting to do something with her messy hair. With a bit of water and a few curse words, she was able to tame her curls, and as she looked at herself in Bellamy’s mirror, in his shirt that dwarfed her and his pants that she had to roll up at the ankles despite having already rolled up the waistband, she felt confident, sure of herself, and even without makeup and eyes puffy from crying, she felt beautiful. She opted to leave her hair down.

Bellamy was in the kitchen as he said he’d be when she emerged from the bathroom. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tight and pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade.

“You’re my favorite,” she said, and it was quiet, meant only for him to hear. “I’m so thankful that you’re my best friend.”

Bellamy pulled her around to his side and tucked her against him, his arm around her shoulders. Clarke was thankful that he understood her need for proximity. She wasn’t normally a clingy person, just like she wasn’t normally so affected when she lost a patient, but every so often it happened. Death had always been such a big part of her life, first when she lost her father, and then again when she lost Wells, that whenever she was reminded of how quickly a person could be taken from her, she needed to be reminded of the realness, of the physical presence of those in her life.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bellamy said, as if reading her mind. He kissed her forehead, and her hand rested against his chest.

“Thank you.”

He held her tightly as they finished dinner, Bellamy cooking and Clarke helping where she could. Her culinary skills had always been lacking, so helping usually meant holding the pan while Bellamy worked wonders. He was making her favorite stir fry, and Clarke was mesmerized as she watched him work.

“Wanna learn how to sauté?” Bellamy asked.

“Like, the actual flippy thing where you flick your wrist and everything somehow lands back in the pan?” Clarke said excitedly.

The man next to her laughed fondly. “Yes, the flippy thing,” he said with mock exasperation.

He showed Clarke how to hold the pan and then wrapped his hand around hers, guiding her through the motion. Clarke cheered when she didn’t spill anything, even if Bellamy had done most of the work.

They ate in Bellamy’s kitchen, Clarke sitting on the counter and Bellamy leaning next to her. The feeling of real food in her stomach for the first time in almost half a day almost made her moan in satisfaction.

“I really did mean it, earlier, when I said that this place is my safe space,” Clarke said, putting down her empty plate. “I feel more at home here than in my own apartment.”

Bellamy collected her plate and placed it in the sink with his. “It feels more like home when you’re here,” he said, coming to stand in front of her.

He looked at her, his hand coming up to cradle her face and his thumb brushing alone her jawbone as his other hand rested against her hip.

“Bell,” Clarke exhaled.

He moved forward slowly but with practiced ease, leaving her time to back away if she wasn’t comfortable, but when she didn’t protest, his touched his mouth to hers, just a barely there press of his lips. Clarke ducked her head, breaking the kiss.

“I can’t,” she said, her forehead rested against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Bell, but I can’t.”

“No,” he said, backing away. “I get it. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

“I can go,” she started, but he cut her off.

“No, stay. Forget I did that. Let’s just watch a movie?”

“Movie sounds nice,” she said with a shy smile.

Clarke sat on one end of the couch while Bellamy started a movie on Netflix. He sat on the opposite end and lifted her legs to drape them over his. As the movie played in the background, he pressed the pads of his thumbs into every aching pressure point on her feet, massaging away her stress. She wasn’t even paying attention to what he’d chosen, more focused on her best friend and how he made her feel every single emotion imaginable and how that scared her more than anything. Not even fifteen minutes into the movie, she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Bell, about earlier – ”

His hands stilled.

“We don’t have to talk about it; it’s fine,” he said, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Please?” she asked, and when he looked at her, his eyes looked sad. It made her chest feel tight. He swallowed and nodded for her to go on. “I can’t lose you, too,” she said, and her voice almost sounded broken as the words came out.

He tugged on her hand so that she sat on her knees right next to him.

“You’re not going to lose me, Princess,” he said as he rubbed soothing circles against the back of her hand.

“When that girl died, today,” she said, looking down at their joint hands. “All I could think about was how much it would hurt me to lose you. When I left the hospital, I didn’t even have to think about where I was going to go; I just came here. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. I knew that I had to see you.”

“Clarke – ”

“And that’s how it is about everything. Every time something goes wrong, you’re the one person to make it better, and when everything is right in the world and I’m infinitesimally happy, you’re the person I want to share it with. You’re my best friend, Bellamy, and I can’t lose you, because I can’t imagine what life would be like without you. I can’t lose you because I love you, and that scares the hell out of me.”

The smile he wore could have lit up the dark room entirely. “You’re never going to lose me, Clarke. I’m not ever going to leave you. I’m here,” he said. He took her hand and placed it over his heart where she could feel its steady beat. “Feel that? I’m here. I’m right here. I love that I’m the person you can come to with anything, and I want to always be that person for you, because that’s who you are for me, and I can’t imagine my life without you.”

His eyes shone with the declaration he’d just made, and Clarke felt her heart hammering in her chest so hard that she thought it might jump out of her. Clarke moved to sit on his lap, her knees bracketing his hips. She carded her hands through his dark, messy hair, and looked into his eyes, biting her lower lip. He reached up and pulled it back out, his thumb nail tracing along the edge of her lip as it fell away, sending goose bumps down her spine.

“I trust you,” she said, and then leaned forward to capture his mouth with hers.

Bellamy held tightly to her hip with one hand and placed the other in the center of her back, fingers splayed, and hand big enough to almost reach the base of her neck. She sighed when she felt his tongue brush against the seam of her lip, and she opened her mouth to his, fingernails scraping against his scalp gently as he deepened the kiss.

When they pulled apart for air, they were both panting heavily. Bellamy’s pupils were dark, blown wide with desire, and she’s sure that hers looked identical. Bellamy leaned up to press a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“I love you, too, Princess,” he said.

“Good,” she replied with a smile before leaning down for another kiss.

* * *

Come hang out with me on [Tumblr](youleftme-clarke.tumblr.com/ask) <3

**Author's Note:**

> I do **actual** writing in my spare time! Come find me at [@pascale_writes](https://twitter.com/pascale_writes) or let's hang out on [Tumblr](http://youleftme-clarke.tumblr.com/)


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